Why Weight? A Guide to Discussing Obesity & Health With Your Patients

This guide is a unique tool for health care providers that offers guidance and suggestions on how to initiate conversations with adult patients about weight and health. The tool is designed to help providers build a safe and trusting environment with patients to facilitate open, productive conversations about weight.

The State of Obamacare Today

Morgan Downey, STOP Alliance Policy Advisor, weighs in on where Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is today as it moves closer to the key date, October 1, 2013. What do you need to know? Individual mandate? State exchanges? Essential health benefits?

STOP Obesity Alliance November E-Newsletter

Dear Reader,

Earlier this month, the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery and The Obesity Society co-hosted ObesityWeek in Boston. It was wonderful to see so many STOP members in attendance, particularly for the release of our Why Weight? guide.

Dr. Carmona Supports EHB Task Force Recommendations

View Dr. Richard H. Carmona’s, 17th U.S. Surgeon General and the Alliance’s Health and Wellness Chairperson, letter of support for the Essential Health Benefits Task Force recommendations here.

Happy National Employee Wellness Month!
By Dan Cook
June 3, 2014

National Employee Wellness Month — which is this month — owes its existence to a corporation with a stake in corporate wellness. But with companies, universities, government agencies and others jumping on the bandwagon, it might be an idea whose time has come.

Virgin Pulse launched National Employee Wellness Month six years ago in an attempt to focus executive minds on offering wellness programs to employees. This year, Virgin Pulse reports, more than 200 organizations have signed on to offer special wellness opportunities to employees this month.

“Mom, Dad, am I fat?”: Talking to your kids about weight and health
By Alexis Skoufalos, EdD
October 17, 2013

“Mom, Dad, am I fat?” It’s a question that many parents aren’t sure how to answer.

There’s no escaping the fact that people make judgments about who we are based on how we look. For kids who are overweight, especially in the teen years, the bullying can be devastating and have a negative effect for years to come. And now that school districts are including Body Mass Index assessments as part of children’s physicals, there is the added confusion over what to do if the dreaded “fat letter” arrives saying your child is at an unhealthy weight.

Way before Weight Watchers or “The Biggest Loser,” a president known for his girth was helping to usher in a modern approach to treating obesity.

Got a nagging doctor? The 27th president, William H. Taft did, way back in the early 1900s. A medical historian has analyzed letters between the two, complete with food diaries and daily weigh-ins surely recognizable to many of today’s dieters.

Have a problem with yo-yo dieting and weight gain? Yep, Taft did, too.

The content on these web pages is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is not designed to replace medical advice or professional medical services. The information should not be used as a substitute for the medical care and advice of your physician. Medical decisions should be made in consultation with your qualified health care provider. There may be variations in treatment that your health provider may recommend based on individual facts and circumstances.

The views and opinions expressed in "Weighing In" do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the STOP Obesity Alliance or its individual members.